Health

HPV virus: relation between the virus and cervical cancer.

Cervical cancer annually produces more than 500,000 deaths a year worldwide, it is the second gynaecological cancer and in many countries in South America and the third world it is the first cause of death. In 1983 the researcher Harald Zur Hausen discovered the association between papilloma virus or HPV and cervical cancer demonstrating that in practically 99% of the cases of cancer the virus was present. Later around 150 types of the same family of HPV have been discovered, of which only a few produce cancer. This virus with a high potential for developing cancer is called high risk virus and only 14 have been discovered, with the so-called type 16 and 18 being the most frequent, both of which have vaccines.

Many studies have demonstrated that by making Prevention or screening searching for high risk HPV is much more effective for the diagnosis of cancer and its precursor lesions, since the gynaecological cytology used up till now has a very high number of false negatives (more than 40%) or what is the same, cases of non-diagnosed cancers. For this reason there is already unanimous agreement amongst world scientific societies in that prevention should be made by searching for the existence of women with high-risk papilloma virus and those who are positive, and send them to the gynaecologist to have a more exhaustive study such as a colposcopy and a cytology or biopsy.

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